OPEN CASE: Veronica Mars

Season 3

Episode 12

THERE’S GOT TO BE A MORNING AFTER PILL: What’s done is done

By Spring Summers – 18-MAR-2007

There’s just got be a morning after pill, no? Please? Somehow, there must be some way, to fix past mistakes. There’s just got to be.

• Nadia easily corrects the error of “making out” with that dumb blonde guy (Dick) for “five seconds” by giving him a fake last name, so that he won’t be able to “follow her around.”
• Veronica asks Tim to correct a past grading error – and all it takes is a quick check of the system to see that there was no error at all. If there had been, we can see that it would have been easy enough to fix.
• RU486 can get rid of an unwanted pregnancy.

But it’s not always so easy to erase the effects of the past:

• Veronica can’t get the images of Logan’s indiscretion out of her head. She asks him to change the past, but that isn’t possible.
• Bonnie – our archeology major - can’t bring back the baby she lost. She can’t go backwards, and remove the RU486 from her system. By giving her the drug, roommate Phyllis has taken away all of Bonnie’s options. It’s over.

You can dig around in the past; you can bring it all back up. You can fall back into past patterns, as Weevil does temporarily, when Veronica asks him to steal a car. You can try to mitigate the negative effects of the past. But you can’t change the past. And sometimes, the only choice you have, when it comes to mitigating the negative effects, is letting go – forgiving, and moving on. You make your choices; you live with them. Logan can’t change the fact that he slept with Madison. Phyllis can’t take back what she has done.

When it comes to the past, you have only one choice: DEAL. Grief, anger, distress, tears – these are all natural reactions. But the only way to heal, is to deal.

Veronica, in a voice-over, mentions the “moral-compass,” and we are certainly looking at the nature of morality in this episode. We see that between the black and the white, there is a mass of gray. It is easy enough to say that Phyllis was completely in the wrong: Her violation of Bonnie’s body was so profound that one can’t help but realize that Phyllis’s understanding of what is right, and what is wrong, needs some adjustment. But there are much more subtle invasions of personal space taking place (TIM, pointing here and there: “Veronica? My space. Your space.”). Examples of moral ambiguity, specifically around the issue of personal invasion, abound:

• Bonnie originally wants an abortion. Her doctor tells her parents about the pregnancy however, violating the confidentially that he owes Bonnie. Her parents send congratulatory balloons, making Bonnie feel that she now has to keep the baby. So . . . the doc did the wrong thing, I’d say. The parents . . . hmmm. Was it wrong of them, to let Bonnie know how much they wanted the grandchild? They don’t take away her options in the horribly underhanded and final way that Phyllis does. Right?
• Dick tells Logan that sleeping with Madison was something that “you don’t do to a buddy.” Logan tries to excuse it by saying that he didn’t think Dick had strong feelings for Madison. Well – Dick doesn’t really buy that, though he seems ready to move on. So was Logan in the wrong, to sleep with Madison when he and Veronica were broken up, and Dick wasn’t really with her, either? He could have guessed it would hurt Dick and Veronica. So . . . hmmm. What do you say?
• Veronica is disgusted by the surveillance methods of a pro-life group. Keith points out that they do the same type of thing, in their work. Veronica seems to feel that it is different when they do it. Very convenient thinking, there, St. Veronica. So . . . is it right, or is it wrong, to spy on others?

Is it black and white, or do circumstance make a difference? (“Our desire to meet our grandchild far outweighed any problems with the circumstances of the pregnancy.”) Do circumstances count? Do motives make a difference? Think before you answer. Do they really? Phyllis meant well, but does that make the violation of Bonnie less violent, profound, final, and unspeakable? Does it make Phyllis any different than an expectant father, who might do the same thing, simply to rid himself of responsibility? Is it different, when Phyllis does it?

Images of detectives – Dick Tracy, Sherlock Holmes, Nancy Drew – stay with the personal invasion theme. When is it OK to get up in someone’s “bidnezz” as Veronica says? A parent has more than a right to step-in and do what a child needs, even if the child is protesting – he or she has an obligation. Parents aren’t your pals. They aren’t there to give you what you want; they’re there to decide what you need, and see that you get it. Helping us think about proper parenting roles are the images of deadbeat dad Steve Botando, and of Madison’s dad giving her a car (with a reminder that he isn’t even her real dad). But Madison and Bonnie are adults. So when does a parent’s right to step-in become null and void? When does it become inappropriate to try to influence your daughter’s personal choice, or to do her laundry, or to buy her something she probably ought to be earning for herself? You can’t be dependent AND free at the same time, can you?

We get the question “Is everyone going to heaven?” in this episode (on the right-to-life brochure), and Bonnie later tells Phyllis to “go to hell.” Veronica, spying on Madison, lets the devil on one shoulder fight it out with the angel on the other. The angel loses, temporarily. Right/wrong. Good/bad. Who should go to Heaven? Who should go to Hell? Who gets to decide?

Hate the sin, not the sinner, advises the Reverend Capistrano. Is this the answer then? Actions can be judged, but people are not ours to judge. (“Judge not . . .” a drunken Logan slurs into Veronica’s voice mail.) Personally, I tend to think yes, this is the answer. I mean, unless I’m on a jury, I try to avoid judging others. I am not perfect at this, God knows. But personally, I think it’s the way to go. I think what Phyllis did was wrong – just as wrong as if Dick had done it for much more selfish reasons. But Phyllis herself? I have no idea what to make of her, or whether she should go to jail, a mental health facility, counseling . . . I have no idea if, in the same circumstances with the same internal and external pressures (who knows what drove her), I might not have done the same thing. I hope not. But how can I be sure enough? I don’t know if she belongs in Heaven or in Hell. I’m just glad I don’t have to decide.

There is lots of reaching out and asking questions and helping in the episode (note that it opens with the image of clasped hands, and we see that image again during the ep, at the Reverend’s office). But everyone fumbles around. They’ve all got their own ideas of what constitutes helping. Sometimes they actually help. Other times, not so much.

“Man, this world, huh?” says Eddie Nettles, the appropriately named busybody who spies on the Free Clinic’s clientele. He says this in response to Keith and Veronica’s story about a girl who may have lied about “past indiscretions.”

Yep, Eddie, it’s a crazy, crazy world. But the truth, for all of us living in it, is this: There is no morning-after pill. There is only the morning-after. And what you do that next morning – whether you take RU486 or not, whether you go ahead and crush the car or not – that is all up to you.

Your choices build your character, your trail – and your life.

***

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